Abstract
Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny (Language and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of language. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1999) argue that the pure causal theory of reference faces a problem, which they call the qua-problem. They propose to invoke intentional states to cope with it. Martin Kusch (A sceptical guide to meaning and rules. Acumen, Chesham, 2006), however, argues that, because Devitt and Stereleny invoke intentional states to solve the problem, their causal-hybrid theory of reference is susceptible to Kripke’s sceptical attack. Kusch thinks that intentional states are what allows the sceptic to get a foothold and thus interpret words in a weird way. In his view, Kripke is therefore correct in not regarding a causal theory as a solution to the problem. I think, however, that there is room to defend a causal-hybrid theory of reference. Drawing on Husserl’s notion of the life-world, I argue that this notion is helpful for overcoming some aspects of the qua-problem and the meaning scepticism which Devitt and Sterelny’s causal-hybrid theory of reference faces.
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Notes
Notice that the problem cannot be solved by mentioning that the name is multiply grounded by different grounders. This is because each contact with the pet is partial. On the strength of such multiple contacts, the referent of ‘Nana’ would be the sum of different parts of Nana, but not the whole Nana.
I have doubts as to whether a causal or causal-hybrid theory of reference could be a relatively general theory if there were abstract entities and terms referring to them. Even if there were abstract entities, they would have no causal powers, and therefore a causal theory of reference would not be applicable to the terms that refer to abstract entities. But let me put this issue aside, because it goes beyond the scope of this paper.
He backed up his solution by holding that there are conditions which make it possible for speakers’ assertions to be meaningful (see Kripke 1982, pp. 73–74).
I refer the reader to Fitch (2014, pp. 158–165) for a good overview of this debate.
This notion is one of the difficult and much discussed notions of phenomenology (see Lee 2019 for a good summary of the discussion in the phenomenological literature). Here I will focus on those aspects of the life-world which seem to me to be relevant to the purposes of my paper.
Husserl also mentions other general categories such as causality, sense-quality etc. (Husserl 1970, p. 139). I do not consider them because they seem irrelevant to the focus of my paper.
The English translation of this sentence has been taken from Føllesdal (2010).
By ‘body’, I mean relatively compact physical entities.
A similar argument can rule out the alternative of regarding ‘human’ as a term that refers to a bachelor, or any other similar alternatives (see Devitt and Sterelny 1999, 91). A bachelor is excluded because, in our life-world, while correctly applying the term ‘human’, we regard the referent as being a human not because he could at the same time happen to be a bachelor, but because of its humanness.
References
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Føllesdal, D. (2010). The lebenswelt in Husserl. In D. Hyder & H. J. Rheinberger (Eds.), Science and the life-world: Essays on Husserl’s ‘Crisis of European Sciences’ (pp. 27–45). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
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Kripke, S. A. (1982). Wittgenstein on rules and private language: An elementary exposition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Steven Crowell for his valuable comments on the first version of this paper.
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Jafarov, A. The qua-Problem, Meaning Scepticism, and the Life-World. Husserl Stud 36, 159–168 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-020-09266-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-020-09266-7